B.J. Murrey - World Orphans, Central America

We say it so quickly, we hardly consider the significance to those we say it to: "When it rains, it pours!"

Usually these kinds of plattitudes are said to hurting people in an effort for US to feel better about the awkward feeling we get when we don't know how to comfort someone who is hurting or at a loss. The shallow responses don't always indicate we are shallow people, but that we feel ill-equipped or inadequate to speak to another's situation that we have not experienced ourselves, or we can't understand their perspective.

I have been reading a book called "Soul Talk" by Larry Crabb. In the book, he reveals how in those times we are tempted to use plattitudes to quickly conclude an awkward conversation with a hurting person we don't know how to handle, those are the times more than ever we don't need to make any statements at all. Instead, Larry Crabb goes on to present methods of "looking beneath" the words & situations the hurting person is describing to you, and to ask the kinds of questions that touch the soul.

This has been impactful to me because I am a "fix-it" man. I know how to fix most things and so when people come to me I often try to "fix them" when they share their problems. Over the last year I have been working hard to develop the part of me that doesn't attempt to fix people, or their problems, but rather to attempt to understand them & to just encourage the person instead. As Larry Crabb mentions, and as the Bible teachers 2000 years earlier, the Spirit of the Living God dwells within each and every Christian. When someone comes to us hurting, they are drawn by the Spirit within them to connect to the same Spirit within YOU (if you too are a Christian). This soul to soul connection is the foundation for "soul talk".

Recently I have been on the hurting side of this equasion. Let me tell you, apart from the "soul-talk" that I received from great friends and family, I don't know how I could have dealt with the pressures, fears, and hurts that I have been battling this month. But because of my close friends' deep connection to the same Spirit of God as I am connected to, they helped me bear my burden - not by quips and sayings, plattitudes and "if I were you..." - rather through the power of the living God who indwells us, the Holy Spirit.

Tonight I heard a preacher say "If the same Spirit of God that raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives in us (Christians), then why do we live such pathetic lives & never accomplish anything for His Glory?"

Not everyone is a missionary. Not everyone is a teacher or pastor. Every Christian however is an ambassador of God, indwelt by His Spirit. He has the same power working within him that raised our crucified Savior from death to life. When we speak "soul talk" to others, we speak powerfully into their lives, connecting on a level that one's mere life experience or advice can never do. I am so thankful for the body of Christ, connected through the Spirit and through prayer. Thank you for those who have spoke "soul talk" to me this month when I needed most. You are the beautiful feet, the embracing arms and the reassuring smile of the body of Christ. 

May more of us learn to speak and to hear soul-talk rather than chatter. May we who call ourselves Christians remember, that if the same Spirit who raised Christ is dwelling within us, we had better have the results in our lives to evidence it.